14. The final step before collapsing your layers is to select a brush to your liking – I chose Artistic again – and raise its size to about 10 pixels, and paint in the likeness of a coat or feathered boa around the neck. Adding a few thick brush strokes to the hair will add to the freestyle feel of the piece.

15. If you’re not quite happy yet, double-check your settings: experiment with raising your diffuse glow, or play with the other filters to find one that suits you. When you’re satisfied, collapse the layers. If you’d like to play with it still further, you can save it, open it in Photoshop to rasterize it at 300dpi and create some more layers.

Tip

The textures you create don’t have to be watercolour – experiment with pencil marks, crayons, or even using little drawings. The texture I’ve created here is a mixture of watercolour and graphite pencil.

Who: Based in Benicia, California, illustrator Freddy Camargo runs Freddy’s Studio, and sometimes partners with his friend Pete Batista, of Batista Studios in San Antonio, Texas. He says: “I’m a slave to line art at the moment, with lots of influences such as Aubrey Beardsley.” Contact:freddycamargo.comSoftware: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator Time to complete: 1-2 hours On the CD: Files for this tutorial can be found on the cover CD.